One Dark and Stormy Night
by Scandalacious Intentions
Summary: AU Requiem fic-verse. Coconuts, apples, the stock-market, a sick child, and another with a phobia. Throw in a small dog whose idea of fun is sleeping on his face. This could be the worst night of Remus Lupin's life.


**Disclaimer: Nope, still not mine.**

**A/N: I am only too aware that I have loads of other things to write right now, but I spent last night like this with my troublesome sister, and it wouldn't go away.**

**A/N 2: Requiem fic-verse.**

There was nothing quite like a freshly showered Tonks. Her skin was soft and her vivacious hair, still slightly damp. She had covered herself in coco butter and washed her hair in apple shampoo. It should have clashed horrifically, but the scent of Coconapple was mysteriously alluring, and loathe as Lupin was to admit it, he became a typical male almost as soon as she had pulled the covers up.

"I'm changing my shampoo or I won't be able to walk by Christmas."

"Mmm-hmm."

She smirked and wrapped her legs around him. "Or is it a risk I should be willing to take, do you think?"

Lupin answered this in tones that suggested they were discussing the stock market. "Well, I think I would. You're probably better off in the long run and I think you'll get a pretty good return on it."

"Awfully cocky this evening."

And with obvious reason as soft moans and whispered profanities filled the room, drowned out by the claps of thunder. It may not have been the absolute best sex of their lives, but it was certainly the most dramatic.

"Don't stop. Just please don't stop."

"Mum?"

Silence. Absolute silence reigned. Tonks was not entirely sure why she kept perfectly still and didn't dare to even breathe too hard. She couldn't pretend to be out.

"Two minutes, Emma, all right?"

"What are you doing?"

Yet more silence. This time for at least a minute.

"Mum was just checking my glands. Wait a sec." Lupin rolled out of bed, desperate not to leave the safety of the covers. He reached for the pyjama bottoms he had discarded earlier and scrambled into them.

"Are you bare under there?"

Lupin coughed. "Yep. Warm work, glands. They can get pretty hot." He crouched in front of his sniveling daughter. "What's the matter, Em?"

"Thunder."

He sighed. "Of course. How could I forget?" He took hold of her hands. "It's absolutely nothing to be afraid of. I didn't like it when I was your age either, but I soon realised that if God wants to move his furniture around, even if it's the middle of the night, who am I to question him?"

Emma giggled, but the laughter died on her lips as a flash of lightening lit the room. She knew what was coming.

"Jump in then." He smiled grimly. "I won't be long."

The bathroom was already occupied and Lupin was tempted to bang his head repeatedly against the wall and renounce God there and then. Tonight was not his night.

The sounds of retching soon brought him out of his depressive ramblings and he tapped the door lightly.

"Ted?"

Who else?, he asked himself. No-one could get past the charms on the door even if they wanted to and as far as he knew, there was no-one locked in the attic. He slowly pulled the handle and leant against the door.

"Are you all right?"

His son was leaning over the sink in his natural form with the complexion of an albino vampire. 'Are you all right?' was the stupidest question he could think of. "You've caught the bug. Well, it was bound to happen eventually." Teddy groaned. "I know, Ted. I know. Sit down for a minute."

Teddy perched on the edge of the bath and tried not to be a baby about it. He pushed back his fringe while his father felt his forehead.

"Yeah, you've got a temperature." He reached into the cabinet. "Calpol, I think."

"Calpol?"

"My mother used it on me," protested Lupin. "Besides, no-one - not wizards, not Muggles - has come up with anything better than Calpol for any occasion. I would serve it at dinner parties if it was legal."

Teddy attempted a smile for him and accepted his father's Muggle drugs.

"You'd better come in with us."

The four of them in a bed would be a squeeze, but he couldn't bear sending his son up to his attic bedroom when he looked like a corpse.

* * *

"Teddy-bear," Tonks whispered to her son, fearful of waking the four year old she was sharing a bed with. "Come here. You look like you've seen a ghost." She knew something was wrong with him the moment she wrapped her arms around him and he actually permitted her to kiss him.

"Fever," Lupin supplied, climbing in after his son.

Tonks nodded. "Probably that stomach bug."

"That's what I thought."

Tonks stroked his hair. "Poor Ted. Remus?"

Lupin gripped the headboard. "Uh-huh?"

"Are you hanging off the mattress?"

Lupin winced. "Yep."

"Good. Just checking you're as uncomfortable as I am."

Lupin laughed softly. "Sorry. I just didn't want him up there on his own." He pushed a sleeping Teddy back toward the middle of the bed. "Oh no you don't. Get any closer and I'll be on the floor."

Tonks shushed him. "What's that?"

Lupin groaned and mashed his face into the pillow. "Swingers probably. Word has obviously got out that we like sharing our bed with people who really shouldn't be in it."

"Your dog."

"Oh, so at half past twelve, he's _my _dog, is he?" Lupin sighed deeply and threw back the covers. He opened the door and said, "All right, but you can sleep by my feet like every other normal dog. I don't care that you're only a baby, if I wake up to find you on my face again, it will be the last time you ever share a bed with me. In fact, I think tonight just might be the last time I share a bed with _anybody_."

And as he woke up to the sounds of Emma playing with the tiny Bloodhound who was currently lying on his face, Teddy coughing violently all over him, and his wife turning the pages of her book (presumably attempting to drown them out), he knew he had lied through his teeth.

These people (and small dog) might irritate him relentlessly for twenty-four hours every day, but for some bizarre reason that he did not even understand himself, he loved them and waking up with them all was par for the course. Secretly, it made his day. He felt loved, wanted, and accepted.

But still, he was never letting it happen again.


End file.
